The invention relates to a garment fastening device. More particularly, the invention relates to a device for facilitating easy and effortless fastening of various portions of a garment to other portions of the garment.
Buttons, zippers, and snaps might be a minor annoyance to some people as they dress, but it can make dressing one's self impossible for people suffering from certain disabling conditions. While we take for granted the minimal amount of strength and dexterity necessary to operate a button, snap, or zipper, many people lack the ability to do just that.
A button requires considerable dexterity to operate. One must delicately grasp the button between the thumb and forefinger, work the opposite edge of the button through a slit in the mating garment, and then twist the button until it is fully through the slot and once again parallel to the garment.
Anyone who has ever fastened a sleeve button at the cuff can appreciate the difficulty of buttoning with one hand. Many people only have one useful hand available for such a task. As such, buttoning a shirt can be a time consuming and arduous task.
Zippers also require that the operator have both strength and dexterity. Although not completely necessary, two hands are usually used when zippering--one hand holds the zipper tab, and the other hand tries to maintain the garment halves close together and parallel to facilitate the zippering. Further, it is quite difficult when only using one hand to initially engage the zipper teeth into the slide with a garment such as a jacket.
Snaps are perhaps the worst offender of all the fasteners. Snaps almost always require two hands. One hand is used to push against the snap, while the other presses from behind the opposite portion thereof. Some snaps require considerable strength to engage, or even disengage.
Hook and loop fasteners, commonly sold under the trademark VELCRO is sometimes used in garments and sporting equipment in locations where it is desirable to quickly attach and detach an object to a garment. Hook and loop fasteners have two components: a portion composed of thousands of microscopic thread loops, and a portion composed of thousands of microscopic hooks which selectively engage the loops. A certain force is required to disengage the hooks from the loops. Typically, this force must be applied to only a portion of the hooks at a time to detach the hooks from the loops. Thus, a "peeling" action must be used to detach the hook and loop fasteners. This property gives the hook and loop fasteners considerable strength against perpendicular forces which prevents inadvertent detachment, but allows them to be easily intentionally detached with the proper peeling action. Thus, these fasteners require only minimal strength and dexterity to operate.
Since the hook and loop components are normally backed by fabric, they are easily stitched onto garments. However, similar fasteners are not normally used to replace the most common fasteners used in everyday garments--buttons and zippers.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as disclosed hereafter.